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Eurovision victory may support to get near AZN 60 mln additional incomes in Azerbaijanâ€™s tourism sector

16 May 2011 14:08 (UTC +04:00)

According to him, any victory of Azerbaijan in international arena is an important for recognition of Azerbaijan as a country. This influences the tourism sector positively: â€œAzerbaijanâ€™s victory will encourage European citizens to get information about Azerbaijan from internetâ€.

Expert says Azerbaijan must be ready to inrush of tourists: â€œWe need to create additional resources and give information about Azerbaijan historical monuments, tourism opportunities, culture and etcâ€.

Note that, many tourists will come to Azerbaijan next year due to Eurovision. By the way, the rules on getting of visa to come to Azerbaijan are expected to be simplified: â€œThatâ€™s why tourism infrastructure must be ready for itâ€.

Gurbatov says additional 10-15,000 tourists are expected to come to the country during the contest. 2,000 of them will be press representatives, 2-3,000 are organizers, participants and others.

Initial forecasts of the Culture and Tourism Ministry related to impact of holding Eurovision contest in Azerbaijan on number of tourists visiting the country are more optimistic. Head of Ministryâ€™s â€œDevelopment of domestic tourismâ€ sector Mahir Gahramanov thinks that number of tourists rises 7% each year even without holding such contest. The last contest attracted nearly 70,000 tourists to Germany: â€œIf we take it into account, it is possible to expect so many touristsâ€. To him, especially, neighboring countries are interested in Azerbaijan: â€œIran, Russia and other citizens have more chances to visit hereâ€. Facilitation of visa regime will increase tourist flow to the country as well.

But, nevertheless, tourism infrastructure of the country must be ready for it too. At present, there are over 31,000 rooms in Azerbaijani hotels. This number is considered to reach to 50,000 until 2012-13. But until the time of contest number of hotel rooms will be less than 40,000: â€œThat is why, other possible variants (rent a home) maybe used during the contestâ€.

The inspections conducted so far show that each tourist visiting the country spends AZN 800 within a week. When we take it into consideration, according to different assessments of Azerbaijanâ€™s tourism industry, AZN 15-60 mln income is expected to get as a result of the contest.